Fearless as a fatwa and subtle as a Second Coming, “Religulous” is a
revelation. For his documentary on the dangers of world religion,
comic cultural gadfly Bill Maher traveled from the Holy Land to The
Holy Land Experience, questioning true believers of many faiths,
mocking all.
“Religious,” produced on the run with Larry Charles of “Borat” fame
behind the camera, ridicules Mormonism and Scientology, Islam and
Christianity, saving Maher’s special wrath for fundamentalism in its
many forms.
“Anti-rationalists,” Maher calls them. He lumps together George W.
Bush, Tom Cruise, con-artist TV preachers, a Senate Democrat and
pretty much anybody who bows to Mecca or weeps at crucifixion re-
enactments. He outs them, parses their beliefs and frets over the
amount of power these folks exercise in our world. The “Apocalypse
Now, or at least soon” crowd have their fingers on the Armageddon
button, Maher says.
Maher visits Megiddo, Israel, which “end times” enthusiasts embrace as
the Revelations-revealed location of Armageddon, the final battle
between believers and non-believers. He preaches Scientology in
London’s street-preacher haven of Hyde Park, smokes a joint with an
Amsterdam doper from a church of cannabis, is tossed out of the
Vatican and Salt Lake City, berated in a Jerusalem mosque and is
hugged by Christian truckers in the Trucker’s Chapel in Raleigh, N.C.
He seems genuinely charmed by the actor playing Jesus at Orlando’s
Holy Land Experience theme park. But Maher challenges John Westcott,
pastor of the Exchanges (“converted” gays) ministry in Winter Park,
Fla.; a Christian Human Genome Project scientist; the founder of the
Creation Museum in rural Kentucky; a Muslim Brit rapper who loves his
free speech, but hates yours if you criticize the Prophet. Maher is
flip and funny, but also profane and prone to interruption. He can be
rude. But he leaves more than one adversary speechless at his command
of The Bible, The Koran, the many shared creation and “virgin birth”
myths that Christianity, Judaism and Islam evolved from.
He’s not quite an equal-opportunity offender. Maher travels to the
Wailing Wall but goes awfully easy on the Chosen People (he’s half-
Catholic, half-Jewish). He leaves out Hinduism and Buddhism and limits
himself to religions with apocalyptic leanings.
“Grow up or die,” Maher tells the human race. But with the film’s
mocking tone, inclusion of snippets of gay porn and profanity, there’s
no way in Hades he’s going to persuade any fundamentalist to repent.
Rather, he’s reaching out to that sizable segment of humanity that has
moved beyond religion. “Speak up,” he says, or the folks who claim to
hear voices and build their lives around narrow interpretations of
bizarre texts will be the doom of us all.
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